


“I suppose that’s part of trusting someone, isn’t it? Letting them help how they can.”

by AFieldOfYellowFlowers



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon, blupjeans mentioned in this one boys, but it is a taako story, cause i love them, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFieldOfYellowFlowers/pseuds/AFieldOfYellowFlowers
Summary: Life was a little bit hectic. Opening up a magic school, dealing with being the saviour of… basically all of existence, handling a fairly new relationship, and spending as much time with your sister as possible after she died and you forgot about her for ten years wasn’t exactly going to be easy.But all of that paled in comparison to Taako’s real issue.
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone), Merle Highchurch & Taako
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	“I suppose that’s part of trusting someone, isn’t it? Letting them help how they can.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was requested by guinevere01 on Tumblr, who suggested I use a TMA quote for a TAZ fic and vice versa! I will absolutely be playing around with more of these, so consider this the first of many.

Life was a little bit hectic. Opening up a magic school, dealing with being the saviour of… basically all of existence, handling a fairly new relationship, and spending as much time with your sister as possible after she died and you forgot about her for ten years wasn’t exactly going to be easy.

But all of that paled in comparison to Taako’s _real_ issue. For ten years, a whole _decade_ , he’d thought that he had nobody, had always had nobody, and could never trust a single soul. And then it had turned out that all of that was bullshit. He had a family. He had a wonderful, stupid, infuriating family, with a too-kind puppydog of a fighter and a bad cleric and a gnome with wanderlust and a sweet as fuck brother in law with terrible fashion and a quietly funny archivist and LUP, his twin sister, his other goddamn half whom he’d never gone without, whom he couldn’t go without.

He had to reconcile those parts of himself. The part that insisted that it was just him, only him, that he could never trust anyone else, and the part of him that was currently curled up on the couch in his boyfriend’s lap, braiding his sister’s hair and trying to listen to Mavis complaining about her classmates while also making sure that Barry didn’t blow up his kitchen reheating last night’s casserole.

The reaper squad had the evening off, and Merle and his kids had been sitting at the house when Taako got home, so tonight was just going to be a quiet night in. Well. A crazy night in. Every night that one of his weird friends broke into his home and insisted that they were having family time Right The Fuck Now got a little crazy. But as it was, Merle had just decided to come over and chill on the porch and blaze it with Lup, and Mookie had wanted his nails painted. They’d get sent home the next morning with more tupperwares of leftovers than they could eat in a week, and Taako probably wouldn’t even bother cleaning the nail polish stains off the ceiling. It added a little flair.

Huh. This was his family. He had one of those, now. Technically, he’d had one for the last hundred years or so. He had people who’d break into his home and steal his food, and that was just… a normal thing now. It was normal that Magnus would come over and start spontaneously fixing something and yelling about shit cheerfully with at least four dogs in tow. It was normal that they’d get postcards in the mail from Davenport, normal that Taako would wake up to find Angus asleep on top of a bookshelf, normal that he’d be painting a small child’s toenails and normal that his brother in law would be giving beard care tips to his basically-niece as she complained about bad teachers and mean classmates.

That was his life, he tried to tell himself. He was happy, he had a family, he had friends, he had people who cared about him. But there was still that part of him that had gone ten years on the road alone and thought that was how his life had always been. Still that part that insisted that all this was going to come to an end, the other shoe was going to drop, that he’d be alone again.

He didn’t know how he’d deal with that.

For all he complained about people breaking into his house and stealing his twin time, for all he bitched about Magnus’s dogs, or Barry’s terrible fashion choices and semi-legal necromancy experiments, or the weird succulents that Merle “gifted” him, he’d hate to be without them. He’d gone too long on his own. He never wanted to do that again.

But there was still that one part, telling him to run, that getting connected to people just meant losing them, that trusting someone was just asking to be betrayed, that he should just cut his losses and get out of here while he still could--

“Taako? Are you listening?”

He was shaken out of his thoughts. Mavis looked at him expectantly.

“Sure am, pumpkin,” he smiled. “You were saying?”

“I asked what I should do about Nicola?”

“Hmm? Uh.. y’know, keep your friends close, enemies closer, all that jazz.”

Mavis looked bewildered. “She’s a rabbit? Were you-- you weren’t listening.” She seemed to droop at that.

“No, no! I just… have a lot on my mind. Rabbits. Let’s see. Carrots? Lettuce? Cute ears? Yeah?”

Lup looked up at him and rolled her eyes. “Koko. You’ve been stuck on the same part of this ‘do for the last five minutes. Something’s up.”

“No! I’m fine, just… school stress. We’ve got voles in the garden. Right, babe? Voles?”

Kravitz looked confused. “Voles? I don’t think we have voles.”

“Exactly! We need voles! They’re an essential part of any garden!”

“Voles eat your roots.” Merle piped in from the armchair by the fireplace. “You don’t want voles.”

“What do you know about gardening? Wait, no. Don’t answer that.”

Merle shrugged. “You sure you’re doin’ okay? You look worried as hell. Heck. Worried as heck.”

“You can cuss around us, dad.”

“Nah I can’t! Your mom gets pissed, uh, gets upset, when Mookie comes home saying bad words.”

“That’s besides the point,” Kravitz said. “Seriously, Taako, are you okay?”

And gods. He sounded genuinely worried, the dork. Lup looked up at him, that same worry laced in her eyes, and all of a sudden he wanted to cry. Shit, this was all so difficult. Why couldn’t he be having a normal problem? Why couldn’t this really be about the school, or unplanned home intrusions, or voles, or basically anything that wasn’t his entire identity and sense of self at war with the other half of it as he tried desperately to remind himself that all this was real and normal and his life, that he had a family, that he could trust people--

He could trust people.

He could trust his family.

He could trust Merle, the guy had saved his bacon more times than he could count. He could trust Barry, that was his goddamn brother-in-law, even if he was a total nerd. He could trust Kravitz, who’d proved time and time again that he cared, and trusting Lup was a given, that was his twin. So what was he all worried about?

“I just…” he croaked out, still perilously close to crying in the middle of his living room, surrounded by Merle and his spawn. 

Godsdamnit! What was he doing? He was Taako, from TV? We didn’t get fucking insecure!

He took a deep breath. No. His family… should know. If even so they could know what they were getting into. He owed them that much. “I just… worry. About you guys.”

Merle chuckled. “Look, I may be a shitty cleric, but I know how to protect myself. And I’m certainly not letting any of the rest of you guys die on my watch.”

“Yeah, and Bear and Krav and I are literally immortal. We can take care of ourselves.”

“No, no! I get that. I just… I worry that you guys are gonna figure out that I’m not shit, and decide to spend your time with some different dumbass hot-as-fuck elf who isn’t just a knockoff Lup with a dope hat!”

Everyone stared at him in shock. Then Merle started laughing. And so did Barry, and Lup, and Kravitz was making a valiant effort to hold back, but Taako could still feel his chest shaking with barely contained amusement.

“I’m being serious! I’m trying to have a serious, adult conversation, you shitheads!” he shouted.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” managed Barry. “I’m sorry, dude, and I’m really proud of you for gettin’ that out, but… c’mon.”

“Look, Koko.” Lup said. She took his hands and squeezed. “I get it. I’m sorry it’s so funny, but… seriously? You’re fucking irreplaceable. You know that, right? You’re so much fucking more than a knockoff me in an admittedly dope as hells hat. I love you, everyone in this room loves you, even if some of them, _Merle_ , won’t admit to it. You saved the world, you’re a really good wizard, and you are absolutely the shit.”

“Yeah, it’s just--”

“Do you trust me?”

He didn’t have to think. “Absolutely.”

“Good. So if I tell you to believe something, can you try your best?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She smiled at him. “You, Taako, may be a bit of an asshole, but you’re OUR asshole. And if anyone tries to take you away from us, I can and will set them on fire. Got it?”

“Yeah!” Merle piped in. “And I’ll sic Della Reese on their a-butts! On their butts!”

“And then I’ll revive ‘em so we can do it all again!” Barry agreed.

Kravitz shot him a glare.

“Or not. I could also just. Hit them with a sword real hard. Don’t need to go too fancy.” he mumbled.

Taako nodded.

The rest of the night passed more peacefully. A stray spell hit a vase and turned it into a ceramic turtle, Barry got soup all over the toaster, and Kravitz refused to try weed.

It was a welcome diversion, really. All this stress was starting to give him dark circles, and it was pretty tough to remember to glamour them over every morning. But… this was nice.

Taako had people he trusted. It was difficult to remind himself of that sometimes, but there were people who loved him, who didn’t mind him needing their help.

He didn’t have to do everything alone anymore. He supposed that was part of trusting someone, wasn’t it? Letting them help how they could.

He had a family. And he could ask them for help.


End file.
